Tokyo Ghoul (Manga)

SPOILERS AHEAD!

If you haven’t watched the anime yet, then don’t read this unless you want to know the spoilers. However, if you have already watched the anime but you still want to read the manga, then check this out.

Be somebody who knows pain instead of somebody who hurts. No matter how much a person has wronged you, just be kind. But what if you’ve reached the point that you can’t take it anymore, should you still let them hurt you? Monsters are monsters, not because of what they are, but because of what the society did to them.

Lurking within the shadows of Tokyo are frightening beings known as “ghouls,” who satisfy their hunger by feeding on humans once night falls. An organization known as the Commission of Counter Ghoul (CCG) has been established in response to the constant attacks on citizens and as a means of purging these creatures. However, the problem lies in identifying ghouls as they disguise themselves as humans, living amongst the masses so that hunting prey will be easier. Ken Kaneki, an unsuspecting university freshman, finds himself caught in a world between humans and ghouls when his date turns out to be a ghoul after his flesh.

Barely surviving this encounter after being taken to a hospital, he discovers that he has turned into a half-ghoul as a result of the surgery he received. Unable to satisfy his intense craving for human meat through conventional means, Kaneki is taken in by friendly ghouls who run a coffee shop in order to help him with his transition. As he begins what he thinks will be a peaceful new life, little does he know that he is about to find himself at the center of a war between his new comrades and the forces of the CCG, and that his new existence has caught the attention of ghouls all over Tokyo.

If the anime adaptation was depressing, then the manga was crazy. That does not mean that the manga wasn’t depressing enough, because it still is. Seeing how Kaneki desperately seeks for every little thing that makes him human is really sad. In fact, that feeling was intensified in the manga. Kaneki’s inner thoughts are written so you know how much he tried to cast away the fact that he turned into a ghoul. I wouldn’t know who went through worse. Kaneki, who lost his humanity, or the other ghouls, who have never felt what it is like to be someone that the society does not despise.

In the anime adaptation, the part that struck me the most was when Kaneki was tortured, especially during that centipede scene. But in the manga, the torture wasn’t that unbearable, or maybe it was, but I didn’t feel that way anymore because I already knew that it would happen since I watched the anime first. I loved Hide much more than I did in the manga, but I loved Kaneki in the manga more than I did in the anime.

Maybe I just forgot how Kaneki was like in the anime because I watched it when I was in 8th grade, which was 3 years ago, but I really think that Kaneki’s brain is more twisted in the manga. He smiles cutely, yet he thinks like psycho. He imagines how he would murder a person in the most brutal way possible. And honestly, I love that side of him. Whenever he laughs while killing someone, my heart pumps a beat faster, and whenever he mentions some sick line when he’s about to eat his prey, I just can’t help but smile. I never liked cannibal psycho killers, but Kaneki is different. He went through a lot and seeing how he changed satisfies me. He is still kind, but when someone triggers a switch inside him, he completely transforms.

Overall, I can’t really say what’s better, the anime or the manga. But personally, I loved the manga more, though there are scenes in the anime that I think are better, especially the fight scenes.

10/10 I know I said that there are parts in the manga that are better in the anime, but I never did and would never say that it’s average or below average because every part of the story is still awesome and heart wrenching.